During the recent Games Convention 2007 in Germany, we received a new roadmap that outlines ATI’s pre-R600 plans for its complete graphics card lineup. At the top of chain of ATI graphics cards is the previously released Radeon X1950XTX and CrossFire graphics cards. Slotted right below the Radeon X1950XTX and CrossFire cards will be the Radeon X1900XT 512MB which will be a carryover product. The Radeon X1900XTX is discontinued and being phased out. This completes ATI’s enthusiast offerings for the time being.

On the performance side of things is the previously released Radeon X1900XT 256MB. Slotted right below the X1900XT 256MB will be the unreleased Radeon X1950 Pro. The Radeon X1950 Pro replaces the current X1900GT. Radeon X1950 Pro will be based on the RV570 core, which is one of ATI’s first 80nm products. Specifications of the RV570 core include 12 pipelines and 36 pixel shaders with a 600 MHz core clock. Memory will be clocked at 1.4 GHz and have a 256-bit interface. Radeon X1950 Pro cards will be equipped with 256 MB of graphics memory and sport a single slot cooler. This will also be ATI’s first card with internal CrossFire compatibility for dongle-less CrossFire. Availability of the Radeon X1950 Pro is expected in October. ATI claims performance of the Radeon X1950 Pro will be faster than the 7900GT.

On the mainstream side of things is the Radeon X1650 Pro. This is based on the RV530 core and replaces the previous Radeon X1600XT. Joining the mainstream lineup later in September will be the Radeon X1650XT. The Radeon X1650XT will be based on ATI’s upcoming RV560 core that like the RV570 is an 80nm part. It will also have 8 pipelines with 24 pixel shaders and go up against NVIDIA’s GeForce 7900GS. Radeon X1650XT cards will have 256MB of memory on a 128-bit interface. Core and memory clock is unknown. Availability of the Radeon X1650XT is expected around the same time as the Radeon X1950 Pro.

ATI’s value lineup will consist of the Radeon X1300XT, X1300 Pro, X1300, X550HM and X300SE. The Radeon X1300XT is essentially identical to ATI’s previous mainstream offering the Radeon X1600 Pro while the other four products are simply carryovers.

Also mentioned in the roadmaps is ATI’s high definition video compatible mainstream part, the RV550 with ATI’s Universal Video Decoder. The UVD equipped RV550 is expected to start sampling in September and availability starting in December. It will be based on ATI’s R515 core, which is the equivalent of a Radeon X1300 series.

ATI plans to move most of its product lineup over to an 80nm fabrication process too. While the Radeon X1950 Pro and X1650XT will launch as 80nm products, the Radeon X1650 Pro, X1300XT and X1300 series are still based on a 90nm fabrication process. ATI will switch the RV530XT based Radeon X1650 Pro over to 80nm with the RV535XT while the RV530 Pro based X1300XT will switch over to the 80nm RV535 Pro core. ATI’s RV515 and RV516 value based products will switch over to the 80nm R505 variants as well.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

We acutally don't know if the R600 will kill the G80 at all at this point, while it should be somewhat faster due to being release later, at this point it's too early to have performance expecatations.